Black WWII pilot group honors President Truman

Kiley Russell

Wednesday, Aug. 25, 1999 | 4:58 a.m.

LAS VEGAS - President Harry S. Truman's grandson accepted the Tuskegee Airmen's humanitarian award in honor of the 33rd president's executive order to desegregate the American military.

The award was presented Wednesday to Clifton Truman Daniel during the Airmen's annual convention, held this year at the Riviera Hotel and Casino.

"I've been overwhelmed being here," said Daniel, who is the director of public relations for the Harry S. Truman College in Chicago. "This is an honor to be invited to something like this. The Tuskegee Airmen have such a fantastic history - they fought for their country and for what was right."

President Truman signed Executive Order 9981 on July 29, 1948. The order declared the policy of United States to be the "equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin."

But the order was not without its detractors, nor was it carried out uniformly, said Rainier Spencer, an associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"It's not as if in 1948 the order was given and in 1949 the military was happily integrated," said Spencer. "There was immense foot-dragging by the military."

It wasn't until Vietnam that the armed services were truly integrated, he said.

Charles McGee is a retired Air Force colonel who began his military career with the Tuskegee Airmen and served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. He says that even after Truman's executive order was implemented by the military, the civilian world was still sharply segregated by race.

"The toughest thing I had to do was tell my young daughter that she couldn't play in this public park just a block from our house in Montgomery, Alabama, (because of her race)," said McGee, who is the national president of the Airmen's organization.

"The rest of society has been slow in many ways to realize that ability is not determined by color," he added. "And until that kind of thing changes, we still have a long, long way to go."

Spencer, an African-American who served in the Army as a major, credits his opportunities in the military to the Airmen's racial trailblazing and Truman's decision to integrate the armed forces.

"The performance of the Tuskegee Airmen and the executive order allowed me to have the career that I did," said Spencer, who has also taught philosophy and English composition at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

"Today the military seems to be the best place for black Americans," Spencer said. "It's a great place to go get experience and be respected for who you are and get equal treatment. It's probably one of the best places one can go to find a truly integrated environment."

The Tuskegee Airmen were all black fighter pilots who distinguished themselves in combat over the skies of North Africa and Europe during World War II.

That was at a time when most white Americans didn't think blacks could be taught to fix a plane, much less fly one.

Almost 1,000 black aviators studied at the Tuskegee Institute and trained at an isolated complex near Tuskegee, Ala. They were charged with escorting America's bombers over enemy territory.